WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER

We’re in this together.

Today I’m defeated. I have 100 euros in my bank account and it is four days after payday. I was already renting money, so I’m not getting homeless. But I have 8 small loan payments in 4 days, totaling 800 euros, plus my kids’ school program wants another 200 euros and 600 euros more for the months I haven’t paid.

My 17-year-old car needs to be repaired just to start a massive repair to pass an update test planned for two weeks. In my inbox, there are some useful business envelopes appearing in the red shade, which is designed to create fear, and which is now triggering only with the shoulder and shoulder. I’m very grateful now that my office offers fresh fruit, granola bars, and a meal plan so I don’t have to worry about this month’s food. I hope.

How did it happen? I do more than the average in Israel, though not in any way the developer money. I would say that the main factor in my current economic crisis was my divorce. But it’s only half. As strange as it may seem, I do financially better than when I was married. Then I can literally recognize the sucking of money from our accounts due to his suffering due to several years of underage unemployment. When we left, I was no longer with the combined weight of bad money management and compensatory income.

At the same time, the parties were responsible for the EUR 25,000 joint loan we took just before the separation. And it was a big expense. It went even deeper when my ex stopped paying, and they began to go after me, finally freezing my bank account. As a result, I had to pay a lawyer 200 euros to make everything out and separate my debt. And it has become a pattern of recent years. My ex hasn’t paid child support voluntarily because it was first ordered. And so, I’ve paid for childcare, programs, clothes. And for that, I have often taken out loans, hoping that I could make some payments.

When we first separated, the child’s allowance was set at very low (400 euros each month for four children) because I earn more and because he looked after the children and working overnight in the afternoon, while I worked with typical high-tech. office schedule. But he continued to lose his jobs and, without the command of the Hebrew language or well-defined work skills, he decided to get fry at a local bar. So now, after a financial contribution, he continued as the main parent of the whole week, even though he was willing to watch the children every weekend as part of a restructured schedule.

At the beginning of 2018, the bar owner threatened to enforce a court order stating that my former salary had to be taken over by a debt collection agency who then goes to me to pay the debt he had built up to EUR 12,000. It worked for 10 months and made a mistake that I thought it would continue to work. Alas, the first month passed without payment, then two months … the third month without payment is over. You think it wouldn’t be that important. Unfortunately, the missing amount is just enough to keep me quietly sinking.

Because I was able to pay for this month, I went back to my lawyer for 100 euros, which I couldn’t afford to see if he could negotiate with my creditors or help me declare bankruptcy. The latter will be more likely to look, because my partner, an economist, was unable to convince my bank to extend my loans to help me make payments this month. I do not know what to do. And I’m the success story of one mother in this country. I cannot imagine the terror that mothers make on the minimum wage each month.

But I think deep, I know everything is fine. Because what my partner says when she calls her cute little apartments within walking distance of Seine.